Sunday, January 24

Thats exactly how my recent experiment in the kitchen turned out to be. My landlord sold the house and is taking his refrigerator with him and asked me to clear all my stuff. It is loaded with my stuff because I love to eat and I hate wasting food so I have been hogging all weekend. To top it all, I decided to finish all the ice cream and instead of eating it just like that, I used a little magic. Here is the magic recipe:

Lets call the dish G2licious ;-)

Take loads of your favorite chocolate ice cream and I mean loads of it

Put it in a nice huge bowl

Add loads of ice cream to the bowl and I mean loads of it

Take the reddest apple you can find and cut it into pieces. Cut some pear too

Add small pieces of pear and apple to the ice cream

When you do this, you will find that the thing you are making doesn't look G2licious so repeat step 3 above

Cut pieces of Chocolate Rum Cake (coz thats what I used) and add it on top of the contents already in the bowl

Decorate with raisins. Call your mum and she will remind you that there is cashew at home too (coz thats what I did). She will also tell you that your idea of putting fruit yogurt would have bombed so good you called. Now, decorate with cashew and put the fruit yogurt back in the refrigerator

Take two nice pieces of the reddest apple that you cut earlier and add it red side up parallel to pieces of chocolate rum cake

Open the bottle of Cadbury Bournvita and sprinkle chunks of chocolate all over the stuff already in the bowl

Take one tiny Nestle Dibs and throw it between the rum cake and the apple

(drum roll)

Ladies and gentleman, I present to you G2licious

(cheer leaders in the background singing: to the G to the 2 to the l-i-c-i-o-u-s [x 4])

Warning: I think this undid my work out for the entire month of January but I am hoping to play tennis regularly from next week on so I guess I can indulge a little.

Saturday, January 23

Not everyone is an Oxford graduate or born with a silver spoon and an English dictionary so there are times when spelling mistakes creep in. It happens to me all the time because I am so used to seeing a red line under everything I spell wrong that when I write with a real pen, I end up making serious spelling crimes.

Here are some of the spelling mistakes and random signs I captured here and there. Email me your pictures and I will add it to this Facebook album.

We the Passanger @ Karmali train station in Goa

Pliss sit if you are Senier Citizen

Handicap became a handy cap...I blame it on the Goa heat ;-)

Wonder who is the gangSTAR in the picture above

I would have come up with an innovative name if I owned that store but this name fits because the store actually had everything that a 'passenger needs' :-D

My Jew friend was very scared inside this List...ooh I mean lift ;-)

I can't find a few others I clicked but I will post it to the Facebook album and we can all have a good laugh there. Happy clicking.

Sunday, January 17

People say it is difficult to understand women and what they are thinking. I came across something that makes me think that how human mind works is simply unfathomable. It is the smartest thing ever made and must have taken a super genius to come up with something as smart as a human mind. No wonder we are the reason why life on this planet is so different.

Yesterday I had a morning dream. It was one of those dreams that you get right before you get up or as you will find at the end of this essay that it was one of those dreams that makes you get up and do something. I know scientists say that dreams shouldn't be interpreted and you should forget your dreams but it is a little difficult to put that into practice given the fact that I get such interesting dreams.

My landlord is moving out. He sold his house last month and in another month there will be a new family living in the house. In this dream, it was the day he was leaving the house for good. He had all his things ready to be packed into boxes. I was in the kitchen cooking a meal. He called my name and said he had things he wanted to show me. I left the kitchen and went to his room.

The room was a mess with things all around. He said, "This is the first thing I bought when I moved in" pointing to a grey color Ganesh idol. He went on and gave me a tour of things from different patches of his life, some from all the years he was a cop, some from his personal life, some about his family, etc. What do you think I was doing as he was telling me these stories?

I was trying to say 'yes' , 'wow', 'really???' , 'no way' for the different stories narrated by him but I found it difficult to speak. My voice was almost gone and there was something in my throat that did not let any sound come out. I acknowledged all the stories with a nod while holding my throat. He asked "What happened to your voice?" and all I could do was shrug my shoulders to show I had no idea what was happening.

I woke up and what followed was very strange but there have been more than a few incidents of this strange 'reality+' things going on in my life. I woke up holding my throat and I couldn't speak. There was no voice and something in my throat was not letting me speak. I picked up the bottle of water I always leave by my bedside before I go to sleep. After drinking some water, I found my voice back but those few minutes of almost being chocked and almost not having my voice made me realize how privileged we are that we can speak. Did you realize the weird part though?

The 'couldn't speak' , 'throat hurting' part was what was actually going on in my real life but this genius mind of mine put it in my dream as something I was experiencing in my dream. I woke up in my real life because of the throat ache part. My network of nerve system conveyed this to my brain but and my mind inserted it in my dream because it knew that my brain was watching my dream.

This is the same reason why your mum stands exactly between you and the tele when she wants to tell you something important. She knows that the tele is where your brain's lion share of attention is focussed on. Mums are smart just like the mind is and the mind is smarter than the brain. Don't ask me what mind is because I can't describe what it is but I know it exists.

There have been more strange things that my mind is doing. It shows me things that will happen in the near future and those things actually happen, it makes me think of a person in my dream and I see email in my inbox from the same person the next morning, etc. Which is why I call them 'Reality+' because I am unable to explain these things. They are unreal. They are more than reality. IMO they are 'reality+'

Saturday, January 9

There is a crematorium near my house. It is not an active crematorium as no new cremation happens here but people come by to connect with their family members cremated here. I walked in by mistake and it was a good mistake I guess because the place was really peaceful, the breeze was strong, there a very big green patch almost like a golf course, birds chirping, trees swaying, flowers making the place smell very good.

There were very few people. I kept walking and found a broken fence leading to a park, the park I planned to visit when I left my house. There is a Gurkha camp near by and there are areas which not everyone is allowed access to. As I crossed the broken fence to enter this green stretch, a jogging lane with greenery all around, I was wondering if I am not supposed to be here. I had my camera in my pocket so I marched on. I had a great time doing evening photography in this quiet, almost forest like park.

By now, I had no idea where I was but I could see a temple and a church not very far from where I was. I decided to march on and entered a very quiet residential area. The roads had an uphill-downhill structure because of the hilly nature of the terrain. It reminded me of the San Francisco cable car ride which also runs on such uphill-downhill stretch. The temple was closed by the time I got there. It was dark already in this quiet stretch. There were no people.

A few meters before the main road was this garage home of sorts. No lights were on. As I got closer a huge dog started barking. Time to tell you guys that I am more scared of dogs than I am of ghosts. You can see a dog run towards you with anger in his eyes but you can't see a ghost. I think this is why intimidation is such a strong tactic used in battles / competitions. It creates this fear in the mind of the opponent. It starts a battle between the opponent's will power and this new born fear. If fear wins, the opponent loses. I lost today. The dog made me go back and take the longer lane to the main road.

I am happy I took this new lane because I came across a neat food joint called Old Village Cafe. The place had nice decor, pictures of Singapore from the 30s, the 60s, etc on the wall. There was a small group of men sitting waiting for their team to arrive. I later found out that they were construction supervisors and had arranged a post-project team dinner. The construction workers started walking in this fancy place which they usually wouldn't visit. The fancy decor instantly put a smile on their faces as they walked in. The Indian workers, a group of 4, sat in a separate group. The rest of the workers, about 30, Chinese, occupied the rest of the seats.

I ordered soft boiled eggs and garlic bread when my tea was served. I had no idea that soft boiled eggs are actually not fully boiled. I cracked open one and it was, like the menu said, soft boiled. It was still liquid, the white body then the yellow yolk made its way to the bottom of my bowl. I usually make an omelet with this form when I am home but I wasn't home. I don't like eating eggs in this form but I braved myself, added vinegar and pepper and finished eating. The garlic bread was soft and very tasty and the tea had a very good aroma. I enjoyed my meal / snack at this nice cafe and saw very happy faces all around. The team of workers was having a good time eating great food cooked for them and even the staff was very bright and full of cheer and smile.

I promised myself I will visit this cafe again. I also promised myself that I will walk the unknown in my free time and in my life. There is a fear that the unknown might not take you to the best destination but if the journey is beautiful then it is worth the walk. Today's journey was extremely beautiful and the destination was great too. Tomorrow's journey might be...umm...I don't know but I will walk, I will walk the unknown.

Friday, January 8

Once upon a time, there were two students. The Queen had a lot of influence on these two students and many others on this side of the globe. At one of the sessions their teacher said "Remember students. What I am about to say has a lot of practical applicability so make a note of what I say today and see where you can use it. 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. All the best".

Lets now look at a random piece of work done by these two students and see how well they have applied what they were taught.

Student 1:

Student 2:

Student 1 was in charge of a natural reserve in Singapore and student 2 was in charge of one of the most important museums in Hyderabad.

For some reason, student 2 assumed 2 things:

1. People carrying 'Arms Ammunition' would visit this museum

2. Audience from assumption 1 above read notice boards wherever they go so it is very important to leave very important messages for this very important audience at the notice board

I hope more places have their 'NO...' signboards using pictures / images. This will eliminate writing something in multiple languages. I am a very lazy person and am always in favor of anything that reduces the amount of work that one might have to do. One notice board with pictures instead of 3 notice boards (one in local, regional and national language for example) will mean less work and efficiency too. Say no to 'NO...' signboards with text.

PS: Unlike popular novels or movies, there were only 2 idiots in the class. The 3rd writes this blog and has a very normal surname. Kareena are you listening? ;-)